Precious Mymoire
by Doodling Shadows
Summary: The worst thing has happened; the main savior in Nico's life has been ripped away from the world of the living, and he has no choice but to live on without him. After hiding in the underworld for a year-and-a-half, he finally resurfaces. And whilst he struggles with the pain, a certain demigod is lending a helping hand.


My friend, whoverywellknowswhosheis, has been trying to get me sick with the Percico plague, and after weeks of Viria's artwork and so many songs I finally broke. So here it is, you sick little Frogger Junior.

I am not completely comfortable writing about humans, and I am very sorry if they are OOC in advance. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own PJO or Heroes of Olympus because I am neither male nor Rick Riordan.

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Precious Mymoire~

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Nico struggled to breathe.

The air around him sagged with dirt and each of his breaths urged on another cough, but that wasn't what made is so hard. Before him, in the mud-blood mix of the aftermath, laid Percy, eyes closed. The son of the sea god had a peaceful tranquility to his features whilst dirt and sod layered on his cheeks and his hair stood on end, caked and dried. His shirt, tattered and bright in the dreary landscape hung loosely by but a few threads, and his jeans weren't in a much better condition. Nico's heart felt like it would either burst or halt to a choking stop any minute. Around them, the other demigods were stirring in a sluggish manner.

But Percy didn't move even as the others realized his condition, half stumbling, half dragging themselves to a sloppy circle next to the younger boy. Tears dug a muddy trail down Annabeth's cheeks and Frank and Hazel hugged, nearly in a sobbing state themselves. Nico was too shocked to utter a cry of remorse or shed a single tear, no matter how terribly he wanted to.

"Percy, god's no," Annabeth murmured before breaking from the straggling group, kneeling next to her boyfriend. She cupped his cheeks, whispering to him, lightly patting one as she desperately tried to wake him. Sniffing, she clasped his face and hugged him, crying into his neck. After a moment, she raised her face. With a loud, shuddering breath, she screamed at the sky, her words mangled in her grief. Nico could make only out a few choice words along with Athena's name.

Silent sobs echoed in the clearing as each one mourned for their friend.

Nico knew a while back that the teen had passed on to his father's domain, if the irritating buzz bringing death had any say in the matter. Each time one of his close one's died, like a friend or family member, slipping into the underworld, he always knew about it. Maybe if the buzz hadn't signaled him, he would be tearing and crying next to his friends, but his soul was dry of the salty crystals. Maybe. Being the son of the Hades had it's downsides; after so many deaths, he didn't know what tears were for anymore.

As he sat there, he closed his eyes and imagined the humorous look in Percy's eyes whenever he laughed with his friends, of his tan muscles, of the way he always tried to help everyone, of his undying loyalty - it was his fatal flaw, many said.

It sure was.

_Why did you have to go making all these promises you couldn't keep,_ he thought silently to himself. _Each one you made only deepened the ditch until you couldn't climb out..._

But it's not like he'd back on them anyway.

A ray of the upcoming sunrise streaked through the mud, highlighting the steel weapons sunken into the wet earth. Mounds of mud surrounded them, once part of the muddy mountain-like statue of Gaea, the form she tried to create for herself. His friends also looked to the sunrise, their hair matted and faces dirty, Leo more so, but none of them cracked a smile. No sounds penetrated the heavy air, but Nico could swear he heard the whisper of a lullaby Bianca Di Angelo used to sing him.

In the dawn, a single crystal marked its way down to his chin, sparkling grimly in the sunlight.

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It had been a long time; how long he wasn't sure. Being in the underworld did that to people, even him. Nico, too scared to look Percy in the eye, only glimpsed him from afar, even though it made his heart ache from loneliness. Several times the loyal friend tried to locate him when the scrawny teen slipped through Elysium, on one or another assignment from his father - but sometimes Nico tried to locate him, just wanting to catch a lock of Percy's black hair, his sea green eyes, to keep in his memory.

But now a couple of seasons have blown by since Nico re-affiliated himself with the living.

Okay, maybe more than a couple.

The land was blanketed in white when he reached the surface through a back gateway, and a shiver crawled its way across his skin. His aviator jacket wasn't as thick as it used to be, when he first received it, and the bitter cold wind that raked across the air seeped deep into his bones. He hated New York winters. But he had to go to Camp Half-Blood for a sole reason: scrambled as he was he never noticed that Christmas skulked around the corner like a cat, awaiting the exact moment to pounce, never noticed a certain someone's special day float by.

He forgot his savior's birthday for a whole _season. _Nico felt his cheeks warm however slightly at the embarrassing fact.

Trees towered over him, enveloping him in skeleton fingers made of wood and branches. The thought made him relax, as if his father was watching him (although he highly doubted this could be close to the truth), and he trudged forward through the snow. His breathes came out as puffs of vapor and his feet struggled through the packed white.

Feet scrunched from a ways away and he began to turn around, only to be interrupted by someone's voice.

"Nico!" The shout sounded familiar to the scrawny, dark-haired boy, and he completed his turn to face the way he came. Making their way through the white flakes faster than he could, Hazel and Frank waved their hands in greeting. "Nico, it's good to see you!" his half-sister shouted, a large smile on her face.

Dressed in thicker coats, mittens, and a few layers of pants, the two were faring better than him. By the time Hazel reached him and placed a hand on his stiff shoulder, Nico had begun to shiver a little more violently. But Hazel didn't seem to notice: she stared at him, a puzzled look on her face, reaching a hand to pat her head. She slid it through the air before it landed at his eyebrows. Her eyes widened, and her grin grew wider.

"You've grown a lot taller since I last saw you, Nico," she said, eyes shining. "Look how a year-and-a-half change a small, scrawny boy into a taller scrawny one. I mean, seriously, have you been eating while you were down there with dad?" She said it jokingly, but Nico knew that his thin figure was a product of his meek appetite, and he_ had _let the notion of eating slip away more than a few times.

"Hey, Sis," he said. Tucking his hands in his pockets, he ducked away from her grasp, seeing a smile brighten her face up even further. Maybe he couldn't exactly get over Bianca, but the nickname 'Sis' didn't apply to only one person, right?

"So," Hazel continued snapping him out of his trance, "what are you doing here? I haven't seen you in a while."

Nico turned his gaze away from her, staring instead at the snow drifts punctured by their feet. "Just visiting."

He couldn't say whole truth, that he was stupid and inconsiderate enough to forget his friend's birthday, that he was just now coming to visit his special memorial at the Poseidon cabin, that he couldn't even find something to place there as a present. Hades, was he stupid.

Hazel gave him a look that clearly said _"Okay, I don't believe you, but I'll let it go because I haven't seen you in forever."_

A silence stretched between them, and Nico kept his eyes on the ground.

"Oh!" Frank suddenly said, startling both him and Hazel. Nico had forgotten the big guy was even there, which not even himself knew how he had. "Nico, did you hear about the new Mythomagic packet that just came out a few months ago?"

"Yeah." Nico already had it. Secretly, since he secluded himself in the underworld, he slipped in and out of stores, buying one or two packets at a time. It was the only thing that helped with the loneliness, that and the fact that his most horded card, truthfully, became Poseidon... Although that would be a thing to talk about another day.

"Really? I think that the new card, Asclepius, is awesome. He can revive a card from the dead if given the right circumstances, and though he may not be all that strong, and he can only be used once, I just think that -"

Nico listened absently at Frank's rambling about the newest three cards, putting in his own word or two when the burly teen took a breath. He truly didn't care for Asclepius as a god, but he would admit that he used the card frequently in mock matches. Which, of course, were with himself; the dead weren't much competition.

The trio trudged through the woods to camp, and in the back of his mind, Nico prepared himself. For the last six or so years since he was discovered in the Lotus Hotel, he had came and went from Camp Half-Blood, and Camp Jupiter once he found it's existence. Neither camp sat well in his list of "Places to Go When the World Doesn't Accept You," so he hardly ever visited. But Camp Half-Blood was worse, in his opinion.

At least in Camp Jupiter people mostly kept their distance.

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When they arrived in camp, Nico was a ball of unnecessary nerves. His eyes quickly scanned the area, but he could only see Leo taking a small group of greasy, oil-stained teens through the forest, most likely to the bunker. Annabeth, Piper, and Jason were no where in sight.

Otherwise, the camp continued on as usual, and he couldn't identify any more of the faces in the mingling groups. The clang of steel against steel echoed from the training grounds, and many of the Hephaestus kids were making a ruckus of noise from their cabin. The other cabins were about on their own business; the Aphrodite children hanging with others of the opposite gender from other cabins; the Hypnos children were booked away in their cabin, obviously sleeping; and the Demeter children were milling about - Demeter's children never looked all that lively when fall or winter came about. The familiar smell of pines and - was that burnt satyr hair? - drifted through the air towards his nose.

But something was off. Like someone misplaced a certain item.

_Percy. _

His heart began to ache, reminding him how lonely the camp seemed without Percy around; the son of Poseidon always brightened the place up, with his easy smile. He looked down, frowning slightly at his aching chest. It's been over a year, and yet the pain stayed as fresh as the previous day in Nico's mind.

A hand came down on his shoulder, palms down, holding him in place while his body tried to stumble forward. To his left, Frank stood smiling, his hand reassuringly still on his shoulder. On his right, Hazel smiled, too. And despite his aching heart, Nico felt warmth seep through, dispelling most of it within moments, though that slight ache stayed deep inside his chest. He still had his close friends.

"Nothing to worry about," she said. "Rest easy; you are a hero now. And so are we."

Frank nodded. "Yeah, we've even moved into Camp Half-Blood. I have to admit that it feels more cozy here because of all our prophecy of seven friends." He then winced, realizing his mistake. "Look, I'm sorr-"

"Don't mention it," he quickly interrupted. The pain in his chest had come back, and it brought buddies. Each breath was painful, and he once again wished that tears could come as a reprieve, if only for a little bit. He hated the pain that accompanied him each day without them.

"Nico!"

He hardly heard her as melted into the shadows, instinctively transporting himself in front of the stone tablet resting on a marble pedestal.

The Poseidon cabin looked the same. Low and long, built from sea stone and abalone, coral and sea shells embedded in the walls with windows facing the ocean. The bronze trident hung over the door, still shiny and polished. It didn't look like anyone had ever lived in it. From the outside, at least.

Urging his heart to calm down and for the pain to disappear, he mentally recited the words etched in the plaque.

_Here lies Percy Jackson_

_Son of Poseidon_

_Friend to all_

_Demigod, Cyclops, Satyr, and Human_

_He died protecting his friends in battle _

_Rest in Peace_

_For as long as thy soul may stay in tranquil Elysium. _

"Percy..." The words slipped his mouth in a whisper, and he bent over the plaque, wondering why this loss overwhelmed the loss of Bianca. Wondering why he was permitted to live, though he was not part of the prophecy. Wondering why he had been cursed with the fate of being Hades' son. Wondering why everything reminded him of the pools of sea-green he had come to hate, resent, and finally... love.

_That's why it hurt to lose him. _

_That's why it hurt everyday afterward._

_That's why it hurts even now._

**_That's why it hurts so much. _**

He loved Percy. He didn't just have a crush born from expectation and hate, he truly loved the teen. Again, he cursed himself for being so stupid.

Crouching down to the soggy earth, Nico let his arms hang at his sides. Poseidon's cabin stretched above him, ever so silent and vacant, like it would for probably many years to come, like the Hades and Zeus cabins. The thought was somehow amusing to him.

Since the pact of the Big Three, whatever children were born from said three were revered, or hated in his case, never finding people who know the exact situation they were in. And the cabins were the same, forgetting how they were lived in, never really having anyone to keep safe. Both were forgotten, ignored in someway or another. Or was Nico the only one to be compared, always hiding away, never really getting close to anyone?

He sat there for a long while, for how long he didn't know, remembering all the times he was with Percy, all of them. Not a memory Nico knew could be spared. He replayed them over and over again, cursing himself whenever he realized a mistake he made in the past. A mistake, in his mind, that might have saved Percy. He kept rewinding each one and trying to call forth the missing holes, which weren't that many - another bingo for the Ghost King. He wanted to remember everything about Percy, bringing back his earliest memories of his savior, back when he still admired the teen as a hero. An indestructible hero who always kept his promises.

He sat there for so long that when he finally went through every detail meticulously, the moon had traversed the night sky and hung in the middle of an arch, just above the tree tops. So long that when he tried to stand, he fell back down, muddying his pants even further.

A hand reached down in front of him and he looked up to see Jason, the sole person who knew his secret. He accepted the hand gratefully, pulling himself up with the help of the son of Jupiter.

"C'mon, you missed the bonfire," he said. His blue eyes looked the scrawny teen up and down. "And it seems like this dinner isn't the only one you've missed as well. Maybe there will be a bit left if we really hurry." He urged the teen across the camp, past the other cabins.

"I-I'm fine," Nico insisted, pulling away from the other demigod, and he could see that he didn't exactly believe him. "I'm fine." The last line he directed more at himself.

Huffing out a sigh, Jason relented, puckering his lips in thoughtfulness. "You look taller," he finally stated, trying to break the silence that had begun to rest heavy in the air. "Grown much?"

Nico nodded, staying silent.

"Look," Jason said before the silence could become any more awkward. "I haven't seen you for a year-and-a-half, couldn't you be just a little more open with a friend?"

"Why should I?"

"Well, you could at least say hi or something."

"Hi." Nico just wanted to seep back into the earth, not deal with him anymore. He didn't deal with awkward situations very well.

"Not what I meant." Jason grabbed his hand, leading him back down to Percy's plaque. "I know you miss him; don't you want to at least talk about Percy? Not, I mean, about his death, but of the happier times when you first met him. Annabeth has sort of secluded herself from the world since that day, so she isn't a reliable resource right now."

When Nico first met him, huh? That should be easy, since he had just sat for several hours replaying those scenes. But he could aggravate the older teen a bit more, couldn't he? Maybe not.

He sighed. He couldn't put it off much longer.

"When I first met him," he started, "I thought he could have been the most amazing person in the world, literally. I took a liking to him immediately, worshipping him like an almighty hero. I was ten, and I didn't know anything about Bianca and my heritage back then, so it was more of a fun time where we just hung out. Later, when I had to stay while he left to fight with Bianca, I felt lonely without my hero. But my feelings changed when I found out that Bianca no longer lived in the world above. I was so angry. That was the first time I tapped into my powers, though I couldn't have been exactly sure of it at the time. Afterward, I left for a while, finding out about my heritage in that time."

He stopped, not knowing how to continue on without revealing more about his crush, and eventual love, of Percy. "... And when I came back, I realized I didn't truly hate him. From then on, my feelings developed... and you know the rest."

Jason stayed silent, in what Nico assumed was deep thought.

"Okay, I think I understand a bit more about you now," he said, opening his eyes to turn and stare up at the cabin. "And I'm sorry."

"Why?"

"Well, it's obvious that you had it a bit rough, the emotional tendencies of a ten to twelve-year-old aren't to sneeze at, but being the son of Hades isn't either, for a totally opposite reason. And then the fact that you can't tell him your feelings sucks. Well you can, being who you are, but that's not what I meant." He took a breath, closing his eyes for a brief moment.

"I know I'll never fully understand your feelings, but being the son of Jupiter, I don't I ever felt as lonely as you probably have. So I'm just sorry."

"But you understand me more than most," Nico replied, not knowing what else to say. He stared at the plaque, once again reading the inscriptions on it. _I'm glad that we're friends,_ he added silently to himself. He would never admit it aloud, but the blonde made him feel a bit more comfortable with his situation, like a brother.

"It still doesn't feel like enough, though." A slight smile brightened his serious features for a split second before he turned away from the son of Hades to look at the moon.

"Whatever. You know you're content. It's written all over you're face."

"Is not!" Jason turned around and slapped Nico across the back, making the demigod stumble. He laughed, helping ease the emotional tension. "Anyway, let's see if we can smuggle some leftovers, if there is any left. We need to get some meat on you're bones. You are skinny as your skeleton warriors!"

Jason left him, jogging across the grass as Nico smiled to himself. Exactly like a brother.

"You coming, slowpoke?"

"Just a second," Nico called. He slipped his ring off his finger, placing it next to the plague. The silver hoop sunk into the marble as if it was butter, and stuck, letting only the skull on top show. _There, a present to remember me by. _

Letting out a soft breath, he ran to catch up with Jason, who had already jogged pretty far.

_Maybe I'll pay you a visit in Elysium sometime. For now, let's see what camp life has to offer._

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A/N:

Okay, I think this turned out fairly well, no? I'm pretty sure Frogger Junior's pretty happy, so go ahead and declare who you are in the comments, you little Percico plague flea.

Anywho, I apologize if some things are off, since I am not exactly concreted on my characters, and I hope you enjoyed this one-shot as much as I did.

Any constructive criticism is welcome, and very much appreciated.

_-*Doodling Shadows~


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